Nearly 51 percent of the returning Oregon National Guard have told commanders they have no job waiting.
An exhaustive new national report finds that the most challenging transition for their families will come after they arrive.
In 192 pages of bad news on the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an Institute of Medicine report released Wednesday describes a “lifelong burden of war” that endangers marriages and children, alienates employers and will cost the nation more in disability benefits, pension and health care as these soldiers age.
“If the patterns follow previous wars, the real peak in needs will be 2040 or later,” said Dr. Albert Wu, a committee member and professor of Health Policy and Management at and Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “We have not begun to plan for that.”
Read the full story in the Oregonian.
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